Zombiewalk
So, driving home from work yesterday felt, to me, like the same kind of fun as getting punched in the dick by Evander Holyfield…repeatedly. Before I get down to the nitty and the gritty of this past Saturday’s quite successful Zombie Walk, let me take a moment to rant very briefly on high-volume traffic and gridlock.
Now, a lot of you won’t need to pay any appreciable amount of attention to this, because you drive through city streets every day and know this shit already. Quite possibly like the back of your hand. Others of you drive on freeways and see city streets as some sort of mysterious purgatory that only halfwits and rubes drive on. You’d be the dirty fuckers I’m looking to speak to. The rushrushrushnostopnolightsnopause Freeway Crowd.
Just because the light is green does not mean you should drive forward. I know. It’s a bizarre concept, but it’s true. Just because the light is green, you don’t necessarily go vroom. If you do so at the wrong time, you end up sitting in the middle of an intersection during rush hour when the light turns red. The idea here is to make sure there is room to go vroom forward on the other side of the intersection BEFORE you actually hit the gas.
See, yesterday there was an apocalyptic car crash on 95, right next to the exit that defecates cars into the middle of downtown Richmond. The freeway having been blocked off, those cars entered the big, dark, scary city and created enough gridlock that I took an hour fifteen to drive 40 blocks. I’ve done it in 15 minutes, to give you an idea.
There was a comedian I remember from my childhood who did a quick bit about traffic. I remember he said, “When the light turns yellow, GET OUT THERE!” Thinking that this will allow the car behind you to get into the queue and traffic will flow more smoothly as a whole and with less anger. Yeah…don’t follow that advice, folks. That was fucking Gallagher. You don’t take your life advice from a man on rollerskates smashing heads of lettuce with an impaled cinderblock. You just don’t do it.
SO! Saturday morning was the Zombie Walk.
Richmond’s Second Annual Richmond Zombie Walk (name pending). Great success! The sun was out, the birds were chirping, the dead rose and children played. It was perfect. Also, this year, I walked, as I was unable to find anybody to play Phone Bitch for. Their loss.
I don’t want to give anybody the boring play-by-play, as much of it was a recreation of last year’s zombie walk. We started getting into costume at 11am, barely made it to the park on time (1:30ish), rushed over to the Kroger, gathered the forces (I heard estimates of 120 to as many as one hundred fifty walking dead), marched up past the Byrd Theater, turned around and shambled back. Quick zoom over to the park at VCU, gather the forces (this time only 80, but still, MUCH better than last year’s 70% drop-off), march through the commons, through the library, over to broad street and back to the park. There’s the quick, quick version.
Now, there was the good, the bad and the ugly. In that order.
The good:
FUCKING MUMMIES! I was up near the front of the group when they came barreling around the corner, all white wrappings and Frankenstein arms and their Moans O’ The Damned drowning out OUR Moans O’ The Damned. Five of them. Came walking the opposite direction. We, just a couple of peaceful zombies, were brazenly assaulted and disrupted by a half dozen mummies.
Nobody knew it was going to happen, nobody saw it coming, everybody was happy, everybody was talking about it after we were done, but BEST OF ALL, nobody broke character. Not where I was, anyway. We groaned louder when they came around the corner, but we didn’t stop and laugh. Three cheers to us for not breaking character. Hoo-rah.
The bad:
We walked through VCU. Spent something like forty-five minutes on foot. Much shambling, loud Moans O’ The Damned, and a multitude of threatening gestures.
VCU was on fall break.
It was fucking empty. I mean, the library had some people in it, but there were like THREE GUYS in the Student Commons, and one of them didn’t even seem all that impressed. The campus was deserted, Grace street had tumbleweeds blowing around on it, and when we walked down Broad Street, we turned away just before we got to the newly renovated shopping district. The (Library aside) ONLY place on campus where we were likely to see and amuse more than about four people at any given time.
Though there was a wedding party at the church on Harrison who seemed quite pleased.
The ugly:
One of the most fantastic ideas that was presented this year was to have audience plants. People specifically there to look like normal bystanders so that we could maul them and let them stand up and BECOME zombies. It was BRILLIANT. I hear the first one went off quite poorly, and didn’t really get a chance to see that one. It happened behind me. But the second guy I was there for, and it was priceless. One zombie grabbed him, fifteen zombies made the Flesh for the Horde© zombie circle around him while one or two people in the middle hastily shredded his clothes and smeared him with fake blood and make-up. When the Horde separated, he looked like he belonged. He also had the presence of mind to do so in a populated area, so the onlookers got a kick out of it. I think there was a smattering of applause.
Okay, so it’s not REALLY ugly, but it’s not as good as fucking Mummies and not as bad as VCU being a ghost town.
For those of you who made it, thanks for being there and I hope you come again next year for another chance to walk with the dead.
For those of you who didn’t make it due to work constraints or vehicular malfunction, my heart goes out to you, and I hope we get a chance to do it proper next time.
For those of you who came in from out of town JUST for the event, you fucking RULE, and I hope you found a ride home okay.
ZOMBIE PRIDE, BITCHES!
Now, a lot of you won’t need to pay any appreciable amount of attention to this, because you drive through city streets every day and know this shit already. Quite possibly like the back of your hand. Others of you drive on freeways and see city streets as some sort of mysterious purgatory that only halfwits and rubes drive on. You’d be the dirty fuckers I’m looking to speak to. The rushrushrushnostopnolightsnopause Freeway Crowd.
Just because the light is green does not mean you should drive forward. I know. It’s a bizarre concept, but it’s true. Just because the light is green, you don’t necessarily go vroom. If you do so at the wrong time, you end up sitting in the middle of an intersection during rush hour when the light turns red. The idea here is to make sure there is room to go vroom forward on the other side of the intersection BEFORE you actually hit the gas.
See, yesterday there was an apocalyptic car crash on 95, right next to the exit that defecates cars into the middle of downtown Richmond. The freeway having been blocked off, those cars entered the big, dark, scary city and created enough gridlock that I took an hour fifteen to drive 40 blocks. I’ve done it in 15 minutes, to give you an idea.
There was a comedian I remember from my childhood who did a quick bit about traffic. I remember he said, “When the light turns yellow, GET OUT THERE!” Thinking that this will allow the car behind you to get into the queue and traffic will flow more smoothly as a whole and with less anger. Yeah…don’t follow that advice, folks. That was fucking Gallagher. You don’t take your life advice from a man on rollerskates smashing heads of lettuce with an impaled cinderblock. You just don’t do it.
SO! Saturday morning was the Zombie Walk.
Richmond’s Second Annual Richmond Zombie Walk (name pending). Great success! The sun was out, the birds were chirping, the dead rose and children played. It was perfect. Also, this year, I walked, as I was unable to find anybody to play Phone Bitch for. Their loss.
I don’t want to give anybody the boring play-by-play, as much of it was a recreation of last year’s zombie walk. We started getting into costume at 11am, barely made it to the park on time (1:30ish), rushed over to the Kroger, gathered the forces (I heard estimates of 120 to as many as one hundred fifty walking dead), marched up past the Byrd Theater, turned around and shambled back. Quick zoom over to the park at VCU, gather the forces (this time only 80, but still, MUCH better than last year’s 70% drop-off), march through the commons, through the library, over to broad street and back to the park. There’s the quick, quick version.
Now, there was the good, the bad and the ugly. In that order.
The good:
FUCKING MUMMIES! I was up near the front of the group when they came barreling around the corner, all white wrappings and Frankenstein arms and their Moans O’ The Damned drowning out OUR Moans O’ The Damned. Five of them. Came walking the opposite direction. We, just a couple of peaceful zombies, were brazenly assaulted and disrupted by a half dozen mummies.
Nobody knew it was going to happen, nobody saw it coming, everybody was happy, everybody was talking about it after we were done, but BEST OF ALL, nobody broke character. Not where I was, anyway. We groaned louder when they came around the corner, but we didn’t stop and laugh. Three cheers to us for not breaking character. Hoo-rah.
The bad:
We walked through VCU. Spent something like forty-five minutes on foot. Much shambling, loud Moans O’ The Damned, and a multitude of threatening gestures.
VCU was on fall break.
It was fucking empty. I mean, the library had some people in it, but there were like THREE GUYS in the Student Commons, and one of them didn’t even seem all that impressed. The campus was deserted, Grace street had tumbleweeds blowing around on it, and when we walked down Broad Street, we turned away just before we got to the newly renovated shopping district. The (Library aside) ONLY place on campus where we were likely to see and amuse more than about four people at any given time.
Though there was a wedding party at the church on Harrison who seemed quite pleased.
The ugly:
One of the most fantastic ideas that was presented this year was to have audience plants. People specifically there to look like normal bystanders so that we could maul them and let them stand up and BECOME zombies. It was BRILLIANT. I hear the first one went off quite poorly, and didn’t really get a chance to see that one. It happened behind me. But the second guy I was there for, and it was priceless. One zombie grabbed him, fifteen zombies made the Flesh for the Horde© zombie circle around him while one or two people in the middle hastily shredded his clothes and smeared him with fake blood and make-up. When the Horde separated, he looked like he belonged. He also had the presence of mind to do so in a populated area, so the onlookers got a kick out of it. I think there was a smattering of applause.
Okay, so it’s not REALLY ugly, but it’s not as good as fucking Mummies and not as bad as VCU being a ghost town.
For those of you who made it, thanks for being there and I hope you come again next year for another chance to walk with the dead.
For those of you who didn’t make it due to work constraints or vehicular malfunction, my heart goes out to you, and I hope we get a chance to do it proper next time.
For those of you who came in from out of town JUST for the event, you fucking RULE, and I hope you found a ride home okay.
ZOMBIE PRIDE, BITCHES!